Component Model for Macroscopic Tumour Biomechanics

The CHIC (Computational Horizons in Cancer) project develops computational models for the cancer domain, as well as a secure infrastructure for data and model access, and reuse. It addresses challenges related to the development, validation and maintenance of multi-scale models by proposing the creation of complex disease models as composition of reusable component models.

We present a versatile component model for the simulation of bio-mechanical aspects of macroscopic tumor growth. The model computes mechanical stresses and strains, resulting from tumor growth or shrinkage in a patient-specific anatomy, from a map of cancer cell concentration. In iterative coupled execution with other component models, its output can be used, for example, to guide the directionality of tumour expansion, or to simulate the effect of increased pressure on blood perfusion.

Simulation of the bio-mechanic interaction relies on the finite element method (FEM); it is based on a hyper-elastic material model, as well as organ-specific boundary conditions and material properties. A pre-processing pipeline has been developed to automate the configuration process. In combination with automatic segmentation tools, this pipeline permits rapid generation of patient-specific FEM models for personalized simulations, including the assignment of suitable material parameters and boundary conditions from simple configuration options.

Model and pre-processing pipeline are implemented using Open Source libraries and software packages (CGAL, VTK, FEBio). The model can be parametrised easily for different organs and body sites of interests; it has been applied to the simulation of kidney, lung and brain cancers in the context of CHIC.